Commons:Wiki Science Competition 2025 in Australia and New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand Competition Winners Announced

Wikimedia Australia and Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand are pleased to announce the winners of the regional competition for the Wiki Science Competition 2025.

• View a list of finalists and winners.
• View all the entries.

The Wiki Science Competition for 2025 is now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered the New Zealand and Australian competition - over 160 entries were reviewed by the judging panel.

What is the Wiki Science Competition?

The Wiki Science Competition is an international photography contest organised by the Wikimedia community, inviting participants to create and upload science-related images to Wikimedia Commons under a free licence. This contest promotes the visualisation and free exchange of scientific images.

The regional branch of the competition was open to entries about Science in the Australian and New Zealand regions from 1 November 2025 to 15 December 2025. Judging of the entries was held in January 2026.

FAQ Session

FAQ session with Gnangarra and Mike Dickison on the Wiki Science Competition for AUS & NZ

📅 Focus on Science: Your guide to the Wiki Science photography competition (FAQ session) was held online on Thursday 13 November 2025.

Wikimedia Australia's Gnangarra and Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand's Mike Dickison gave an informative FAQ session on the Wiki Science Competition for Aussies & Kiwis and demonstrated:

• 🦠 How to enter the competition
• 🧬 Tips and tricks when uploading to Wikimedia Commons
• 🔭 Creative Commons licenses
• 🔬 How to contribute your work across various Wikimedia Projects.

A recording of the session is available on Wikimedia Commons and on YouTube.

Check the rules

The main rules are listed on the Competition website. Here we provide a brief summary.

The Australian and New Zealand competition will be open from 1 November 2025 to 15 December 2025.	There is no limit to the number of files one can upload. If you upload more than one file, only one highest prize is eligible. The rest shall be awarded to the next highest scoring entrant.	Only images uploaded under a free use license or as public domain will be eligible eg. CC-BY-SA 4.0, CC-BY 4.0, and CC0 1.0, and similar.
Images entered into the competition must be taken or authored by submitter of the image using e-mail registered Wikimedia account. In case of multiple authors, all the co-authors’ names must be provided. In case of institutional uploads, submission can be made by a representative of the organisation.	Upload your images with meaningful scientific descriptions. You should clearly explain what the image shows and where or how it was taken. Include additional information if needed to identify the subject.	Upload the highest resolution possible. The image size should be at least 2 megapixels, unless the technology used does not allow it. The image must not contain water marks, logos, additional text, graphics (except scales), or insets. Images created using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools will be disqualified.

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Background

Launched in Estonia in 2011, the competition expanded to Europe in 2015 and became a global event in 2017, resulting in over 25,000 images submitted by more than 5,200 participants.

Categories

There are seven competition categories to enter, each with individual prizes to be won.

• People in science: Scientists in their natural habitat.
• Microscopy images: Optical, electron, and scanning probe microscopy images all fall under this category.
• Non-photographic media: Audio and video files, computer-generated imagery, etc.
• Wildlife and nature: Organisms who grow or live wild in an area. Macro photography also falls under this category.
• Astronomy: All images related to astronomy, be it images of stars, people viewing them or the equipment used for it.
• Image sets: Thematically linked images, that can be viewed as one set.
• General category: Everything else goes into this category, from archaeology to vulcanology.